Israeli Leader, Obama Clash

Netanyahu Delivers Rare Public Rebuke to U.S. President Over Proposal to Restart Peace Talks

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President Obama and Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu meet in the Oval Office on Friday.
Associated Press

By

Jay Solomon And

Carol E. Lee

Updated May 21, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a rare public rebuke of President Barack Obama at the White House, declaring that Israel would never accept the terms of his proposal to resume peace talks with the Palestinians.

Mr. Netanyahu appeared to lecture Mr. Obama following their nearly two-hour meeting Friday—exposing tensions between leaders over Mideast policy that are usually kept out of the public eye.

An Awkward Photo Op

Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

That followed some unsuccessful behind-the-scenes wrangling by Israeli officials to convince Mr. Obama to abandon plans to urge, in a major speech Thursday, that peace negotiations resume based on Israel's borders before it gained new territory in the 1967 Six Day War.

Before cameras and reporters in the Oval Office Friday afternoon, Mr. Netanyahu turned to face the president while telling him Israel "cannot go back to the 1967 lines" that are "indefensible."

The discord was likely to play out further at the annual gathering of Washington's most powerful pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where Mr. Obama was scheduled to speak on Sunday and Mr. Netanyahu the following day.

The encounter could place Jewish-Americans in the awkward position of having to choose sides between the visions laid out by the two leaders. Pro-Israel lawmakers and lobbyists already began lashing out at Mr. Obama's stance soon after he proposed it.

Mr. Netanyahu will also speak before a joint session of Congress Tuesday, providing him a second opportunity to rally support against Mr. Obama's approach.

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Neither leader, meanwhile, articulated a clear path for resuming peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Indeed, both men agreed that the recent inclusion of the militant organization Hamas in a Palestinian government greatly undermined efforts to revive the peace process. The U.S. designates Hamas as a terrorist organization.

"Obviously there are some differences between us in the precise formulations and language, and that's going to happen between friends," Mr. Obama told reporters as he sat next to Mr. Netanyahu, before the Israeli premier spoke.

But, he said, "I think that it is possible for us to shape a deal that allows Israel to secure itself, not to be vulnerable, but also allows it to resolve what has obviously been a wrenching issue for both peoples for decades now."

Messrs. Obama and Netanyahu met Friday morning at the White House following 24 hours of hectic diplomacy between the U.S. and Israel.

Earlier in the week, senior Israeli officials said they had been led to believe that Mr. Obama's address—his first wide-ranging speech on recent political turmoil in the Mideast—wouldn't focus in a significant way on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Then, before the speech Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu got word that Mr. Obama was about to make the clearest statement ever by a U.S. president that talks to create an independent Palestinian state should begin with Israel's pre-'67 borders as the baseline—though the president would recognize the need for land swaps.

Israel has resisted such a declaration, arguing that it essentially forces the Jewish state to give up bargaining chips at the beginning of any negotiation. Mr. Netanyahu has said Mr. Obama's comments marked a reversal from an assurance by President George W. Bush in 2004 that Washington accepted that Israel wouldn't have to give up large Jewish settlements in the disputed West Bank as part of any final agreement.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a rare public rebuke to a U.S. president in his own office on Friday, rejecting Mr. Obama'a call for Israel to base peace talks on pre-1967 borders. Laura Meckler has details.

President Obama acknowledges U.S. ties to the Middle East and how recent changes are shifting foreign policy in the region. Video courtesy of Fox News.

Mr. Netanyahu tried to prevent the statement, in a tense phone call with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, according to officials briefed on the exchange. Mr. Obama started his Thursday speech more than half an hour late due to last-minute changes, according to U.S. officials.

Messrs. Netanyahu and Obama had wide-ranging discussions in the Oval Office Friday, which drifted well beyond the scheduled time and cut into the two leaders' lunch.

Aides who were supposed to be included in portions of the meeting were left outside Mr. Obama's office.

U.S. and Israeli officials said the two men discussed the reasons behind Mr. Obama's decision to make a definitive public statement on the borders issue.

They also discussed the recent political turmoil in the Arab world, particularly the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as well as the continuing threat posed to Israel by Iran.

Israeli officials said Mr. Netanyahu left the meeting feeling better about the state of Israeli relations with its closest ally. "He came in worried and left encouraged," said a senior Israeli official briefed on the meeting.

Still, Mr. Netanyahu directly challenged Mr. Obama's vision for a two-state solution in the press availability after the meeting, a rare break from the usual diplomatic niceties at such staged events.

After Mr. Obama's introductory comments, the Israeli leader leaned toward the president and directly said his call for negotiations based on pre-1967 lines was a non-starter.

"Remember that, before 1967, Israel was all of nine miles wide. It was half the width of the Washington Beltway, and these were not the boundaries of peace; they were the boundaries of repeated wars, because the attack on Israel was so attractive," Mr. Netanyahu said, staring at Mr. Obama.

"So we can't go back to those indefensible lines, and we're going to have to have a long-term military presence along the Jordan [Valley]," he added.

The latter point directly contradicted Mr. Obama's statements in his Thursday speech, which stated Israel would have to conduct a phased withdrawal of its troops from the West Bank.

The White House, following the press event, tried to play down any divisions and said Mr. Obama's speech didn't mark a significant shift in U.S. policy. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush mapped out peace plans that implicitly involved using the 1967 borders as a starting point for talks; Mr. Obama made that assumption explicit.

"This is a position that's been recognized by all parties to these negotiations for a long time: that any territorial resolution would be based on the '67 lines," White House press secretary Jay Carney said after the meeting.

U.S. and Israeli officials said the coming weeks could prove crucial for the stability of Israel and the broader Middle East.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, viewing the peace process as stalled, has launched a campaign to win recognition for Palestine as a sovereign state from the United Nations. A vote on the issue could pass during the U.N. General Assembly in September.

U.S. officials said one reason Mr. Obama made his declaration Thursday was to try to win international support for a new round of peace talks and to block the U.N. vote. U.S. officials said the White House needed to show the Palestinians and Europeans that Washington was serious about pressing Mr. Netanyahu for concessions.

Mr. Netanyahu's on-camera critique of the American president also drew out some divisions among Jewish-Americans, who were already split over Mr. Obama's suggestion that peace negotiations should begin with the pre-1967 lines.

Mr. Obama won the majority of Jewish voters in 2008, but some have expressed dissatisfaction over his approach to Israel.

"The President's remarks have revived and exacerbated fears in Israel," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I., Conn.). "The fact is, while the exciting and hopeful new reality in the Arab world is the Arab Spring, the newest reality in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is not hopeful," he said.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a Jewish human-rights group, said he was "delighted" by Mr. Netanyahu's statements.

"The prime minister decided while the press was there that he was going to make it very clear in front of President Obama this was not going to happen, not on his watch," he said.

Others played down the tension between the two leaders Friday. Abraham Foxman, national director of the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League, criticized Mr. Obama's 1967 statement but said the two countries mostly agree on how to begin the peace process.

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